A little delayed, and after censoring my first draft (the more I read it the more I dislike it) here it´s my report of the Woman´s World Open, the tourney I was playing few days ago in London. I was eager and expecting something big but it went baaaaad!!
This tourney has, as I explained before, a little peculiar format. It´s a shoot-out tourney where the players are drawed into six-hand tables, and only the winner of each table gets her pass to the final. It´s also a turbo and short-stack tourney with an initial stack of only 50bb. With this scenario, the best strategy (IMO) is playing loose and hyper-aggresive (why? well... because playing loose aggresive in a girls tourney is always a safe-bet, and because it´s turbo, shortstacked and 6-handed, and most important, only one gets the prize, so you don´t really can afford a tight game...)
My standard plan was the same as the last year: trying to play all the hands I can in position and in an aggressive way. But this year I had a difficult table. There were Sandra Naujok and Maria Demetriou (one at each side! Maria at my right, an Sandra at my left) and I knew that just a few common raises pre-flop wouldn´t work out as I would like them to. And since I´m not very used to play loose-aggresive, I was wondering... Ok, how do I play the way I want when I know my opponents wouldn´t let me do it?
I remember the most loose-aggresive guy that I know;-) and that time when I asked him "hey, you raise ALL hands! When do you stop? When do you change gears?" and his revealing answer "when I crash" (LOL) so I decided to mantain the original plan and even try some moves more risky and aggresive. I would have mainly a pre-flop game, with no calls, no limps, and with less raising and more 3 and 4 betting.
I managed to get my stack up to 165.000 points from the 100.000 original in less than two levels and with no showdowns. I just have a pair of hands to comment, because the rest of it are all the same: preflop game with crappy hands, raises and re-raises to get those little-big-pots right there.
Let´s go with the hands. I´ll appreciate any comments on them, anyone who believes I played badly a hand or a street or that my reasoning is not good, just explain it to me in the comments (or by email, facebook, twitter, as you wish!)
- First level, 1000 - 2000 blinds. I raise (my stack is a little more than the initial 100.000) to 6000 in the CO with QQ. Sandra (with a stack a little less than the 100.000) in the button, reraises me to 17.000, and I 4bet her to 45.000. She folds.
I´m not sure about
this hand. On any other scenario I think the 4bet here is a mistake and
that maybe the size of my bet is too much. At six handed and
short-stack it´s very important to get big value of the big hands I
could have.... But I choosed the 4bet because of many reasons. First, I
don´t want to play the hand out of position, even with a strong hand as
QQ, I would rather committing pre-flop to make my postflop decissions
easier. And second, this was the first hand that I raised late and
Sandra re-raised me with position on me, and I could tell this would
keep happenning again and again, so I wanted to send the message "this is what is going to happen when you 3bet me" as soon as possible...
I think I would play it the same again, but I can´t help regret don´t tried to get more value... That was the first and last re-raise that Sandra made me (well... she didn´t have the chance neither... she was unlucky and get knocked out soon).... ok, I don´t know! As I said, comments are welcome.
The other hand was the one which cost me the tourney. When it happened I was convincing myself that the hand was well-played, but now, in distance and looking at the whole picture I can tell I made too many mistakes in a single hand. It´s becoming quite a tradition that I post only my awful hands, but hey, I learn when I make mistakes, so I´ll share it (with a little concern).
- Second level, blinds 2000 - 4000, Maria Demetriou who´s chip leader with about 200.000 chips, raises me to 11.000 from the SB. I´m at BB, with 165.000 chips. I have K6, and I call.
I would have raised my K6 on this spot most of the times. Here I
didn´t because I had made 3bet to Maria on few hands in a row. Against
her range, I think my king has a big chance of being ahead, but I don´t
want to face a 4bet or an all-in from her, she´s the chip leader and
I´m afraid she´s going to use her stack to stop me, so I decided to
make just the call and play the hand with position.
Flop cames A76, all diamonds. She checks, I check behind.
Her
check here seems weird to me. I saw her doing continuation bets in
almost all the hands she has played as the pre-flop aggresor. I
understood her check as weakness. I believe that if she had a made hand
or a big draw she would bet. The most-common way to play a big hand in
this situation is wait for your aggresive opponent (as I was) to bet,
but I do believe that Maria, who always made the continuation bet (and
who knews that I knew she always did the continuation bet) would try to
get advantage with a made hand, and get more value by betting, waiting
for a re-raise of mine. So, I think my pair of sixes is maybe
winning and I want to bet but, again, I´m afraid she had planned a
check-raised (she has the stack to do it), so I don´t feel very
confortable with the betting. At that moment I think that the best
thing to do is let the flop go and see how she reacts on the turn, and
then decide how I deal with this hand.
Turn is the 4 of hearts. She bets 12.000 and I call.
Again
I feel weakness when she bets 12.000. I can´t see how the 4 may have
helped her. If she had a straight draw on the flop I´m pretty certain
she would have made a continuation bet. Besides, she´s only betting
half of the pot, she´s not trying to protect a hand against the
draws.... I decided my move on the turn planning a "value-bluff" on the river.
I think she´s trying to make a move into the pot, and altough I´m not
that sure anymore that my six is good (could she have a top or second
pair??) I did believe that a call would be enough to keep her for
betting on the river and than I could get the pot then making a
sizeable bet.
But I can see now that I made a big mistake with this call. I´m trying to make my hand look like a real strong hand, like a flush, but seen the way I played preflop and postflop, IF I had the flush it would be with two medium cards. But with my call, it seems more like a nut-flush (which doesn´t fits very much with my previous game) or, above all, it seems a lot like a draw, so my "value-bluff" on the river would not work out without a diamond on the river... I think I should have done a re-raise here, but it seems like I lost my nerve on the most important moment...
River is the 8 of clubs. She bets 22.000, I re-raised her to 58.000. She calls me, she has Q5, straight.
There´re plenty mistakes on this hand. First of all, when she bets, I didn´t re-evaluated the situation and I stayed stitched to my plan. I didn´t stop to think! I was like "oh! so, I had planned to bet on the river and you do it first?? then I re-raise!"
But the situation was completely different! I was expecting her to
check because she was showing weakness to me, but now she´s showing
greath strenght with this value bet!! But since I discarded big hands
of her range, I thought she was trying to get the pot and that the best
hand she could have would be something like a small ace or second or
third pair... So I, so naive, thought like "I re-raise here and she folds ANY HAND" so I did it. Indeed,
I believe if she hadn´t the straight she would have folded, but i have
to point out as well that even when I think that my bet is enough to
make her fold any pair, my re-raise has not too much Fold Equit at that
spot. If I wanted her to fold weak hands that were ahead of mine, I should have done an all-in.
But the thing I regret the most was that I didn´t stop to re-evaluate and think about her bet. That bet has "I made my hand!!" written all over it, but I didn´t saw it... I should have guess that she was ahead and that she was going to pay my re-raise. And, besides, if I was thinking that move was a try to steal the pot, a call would be enough, I don´t have to jeopardice all my stack.
But... what´s done it´s done. I stayed with 62.000 chips, blinds of the 3rd level (3000 - 6000) came over me and I moved all-in as soon as I could, with A7 and 53.000 chips. The big blind call me with Ak and sent me home.... Maybe this hand has something to review as well... maybe I shouldn´t moved all-in with A7 and tried to wait for a better hand or a most profitable spot with more money at the pot. Anyway, the hand where I lost the tourney was that other one.
Besides this awful hand I´m pretty happy with my game. I made 3 and 4bets with hands which I´ve never dare to do it before, so, at least, I worked out a little on my aggresiveness. Maybe too much. I would have to learn to control it and to change gears before I crash like I did.:P
On the other hand, this trip was great. I´ve met big big players. The day before the tourney I get the chance of meeting Sandra Naujoks and have a little chat with her and my team buddy Kim. I liked Sandra a lot, she´s super nice and seems very focused and with a lot of confidence. I like people like her. I also had the chance to talk a little with Annette Obrestead (she is the best!!) who´s one of the players I admire the most, and I really enjoyed! She´s so nice and kind (even when she scared me telling me something like "you should play right if you don´t want me talking bad stuff of you on the comments!" damn! I can imagine what she said... :P). Maria Demetriou is also very nice and funny. I run away out of the studio as soon I got busted, in order to get my plane on the day and came back home as soon as possible, so I couldn´t say goodbye properly, but I´m really hoping I met all these big players and nice girls very soon.
Bytheway, CONGRATS TO KIM for her 2nd prize!! That´s amazing! weeeee!!!
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